Product Details

• Actors: LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden
• Directors: LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Gabrielle Beaumont, Robert Becker, Cliff Bole
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Language: English, French
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Paramount
• VHS Release Date: January 1, 1998
• Run Time: 46 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303447759
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #327,619 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Data (Brent Spiner) surprises the Enterprise crew when he reveals his research project-Lal (Hallie Todd), an android he has personally built and programmed. Picard (Patrick Steward) is concerned about Starfleet's reaction to Lal, but nonetheless permits Data to continue his study.

After choosing the appearance of a human female, Lal is given a job in Ten Forward where she can interact with many different people. But Lal's future prospects dim when Starfleet's Admiral Haftel (Nicolas Coster) beams aboard. Haftel wants to transfer Lal to a Federation research station so she can be more closely monitored. Picard argues that Lal should remain with Data, whom Lal regards as her father. But no one recognizes that Lal's android makeup continues one fatal flaw: human emotion, which is slowly destroying her.

Directed by Jonathan Frakes.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even non-Trekkers will like this one., June 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 64: The Offspring [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Data secretly builds a daughter named Lal, and then begins the job of raising his daughter, until he is asked to turn Lal over to Starfleet for study and training. The questions of parent/child rights, governmental intervention into family concerns, and the wonder of seeing the world through a child's eyes makes this a thought-provoking emotional episode that many of my non-Trekker friends have enjoyed viewing.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterful allegory, May 30, 2002

By 

M. Lee "spot_lizard" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 64: The Offspring [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I should begin by saying that I am not a die-hard Star Trek fan. I enjoyed the exploits of Shatner & Co. and watched the first few episodes of TNG but never really got into it.

I picked it up again around season 3 and found that the characters had matured significantly. The scripts were strong and the show now looked as though it had some mileage. This episode in particular stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Brent Spiner had achieved something with the character of Commander Data that is actually quite difficult to pull off without overdoing things: Having a character that is devoid of any emotion evoke sympathy and pathos from the audience.

The Offspring sees Data become a Father, when he creates a child android (named Lal) based on his own neural network. As Lal 'grows' Data is reminded of his own developmental processes and finds that being a father is not easy.

Lal's existence also attracts the attention of Star Fleet and the notions of who knows best for the child, the State (Star Fleet) or the parent, are allegorically explored.

The final 15 minutes are heart wrenching and have bought a tear to my eye on more than one occasion. Definitely a classic and worthy of anyone's collection even if, like me, you're just a casual viewer.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Data The Father, March 15, 2006

By 

Andre S. Grindle "Andre' Grindle" (Brewer Maine) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Star Trek - The Next Generation, Episode 64: The Offspring [VHS] (VHS Tape)

After attending a cybernetics conference Commander Data constructs his own android.A female named Lal (the Hindi word for Beloved).It is a very touching story about family,love and loss.Like any child Lal has many questions about the world on the Enterprise and Data's friends and fellow officers,even as to why human's only have two hands.Adding to this is a Starfleet admiral who believes Lal and Data should be seperated because of Data's familial shortcomings.Lal becomes as popular with the Enterprise crew as Data,even falling victim to some of Data's own shortcomings.Strangely enough Lal actually begins to show signs that her programming has exceeded Data's own,starting with her ability to use verbal constractions.These small abilities to a full blown emotional panic attack when she is told she'll be seperated from her father.Sadly being an android this leads to circuit falier and in the end she does not survive.Even though Data has no feelings the audience will feel for him.This episode features many interesting (and sometimes humorous) observations on the travails of parenthood and humanity in general.One of them being that striving to better oneself is a goal onto itself and fullfills it's own purpose (points like this being why I love this show so much) and Data trying to explain to Lal why she was laughed at by human children-quite correctly observing that people often hide fear and intolerance behind humor.I have faced that dilema more times then I'd like to count so I sympathize with Lal for being different and the troubles she encounters.'The Offspring' has a sad ending but it makes so many good point it'll cancel that out fast.